Alexander Loy is an associate professor at the department of microbiology and ecosystem science (University of Vienna, Austria), managing director of the Austrian Microbiome Initiative (AMICI), and faculty member of the Austrian
Polar Research Institute (APRI). He received his Ph.D. in microbiology at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. In 2003, he received a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship to join the newly founded department of microbial
ecology at the University of Vienna in Austria, where he established his own research group in 2006 and was assistant professor from 2009 to 2013. He obtained his Habilitation (venia docendi) and the Young Scientist Award of the
City of Vienna in 2012. Research of the Loy group focuses on the function of the complex symbiotic microbiota of animals and humans, evolution and ecology of sulfur microorganisms,
and the development of molecular and isotope-labeling methods for studying uncultivated microorganisms in their natural environment. Since 2002, he has published 69 papers in peer-reviewed journals (including one paper each in ‘Nature, Science and PloS Biology,’ and two in ‘PNAS’) and 9 book chapters, and has edited a book on geomicrobiology.